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Nuit Blanche 2017 will serve up issues with the art

A caravan of art-filled shipping containers are going to take over Nathan Phillips Square, videos will be projected onto Old City Hall and three-dimensional graffiti will fill the streets. But only for one night.

Nuit Blanche is coming.

The annual city-wide arts event, which lasts from 6:58 p.m. until sunrise, returns the evening of Saturday, Sept. 30. And for the first time, it will have an overarching theme.

The 90 projects set up in public spaces will all address the theme of “Many Possible Futures.”

Up until Canada Day, the city’s cultural programming as part of Canada 150 had focused on Toronto’s role within Confederation, said Patrick Tobin, the city’s director of arts and culture services.

“We’ve looked at the first 150 years of Confederation and now this looks at what comes beyond that,” he said.

Most of the projects we be clustered around a walkable stretch of the downtown core.

“One of the things we’ve tried over the last few years is to create this continuous experience so that audiences can see as much as they can within an easy walking distance,” said Jeanne Holmes, programming supervisor for city cultural events. “They can start at the bottom and work their way up or vice versa.”

The event will also address timely and relevant issues, including protest, social change, revolution, environmental degradation, Indigenous rights and gender equality.

“We’re looking at some of the issues that Canadian society’s going to have to continue to grapple with and we’re inviting artists in to explore those themes and give Torontonians a take on some of that content,” Tobin said. “I think Nuit Blanche is always engaged with these issues, but it might be a little more explicit with the theme this year.”

There will be 39 city-produced projects, 10 major institution projects, 39 independent projects from the arts community, and two special projects produced by corporate sponsors H&M — expect a massive installation at Yonge-Dundas Square — and Shiplake Properties Limited.

The city projects will fall within four curated exhibitions.

Barbara Fischer, executive director and chief curator at the Art Museum at the University of Toronto, will curate “Taking to the Streets,” which will use the streets as a medium for social gathering. It includes Abbas Akhavan and Kristina Lee Podesva’s “Dream Variations” — likely the night’s most relaxing installation, with “cots, pillows and sung voices in darkness,” according to the news release.

Another exhibition, containing five projects, aims to examine the future through how we approach the unknown and unforeseen, and will be curated by Clara Halpern, assistant curator at Oakville Galleries.

Maria Hupfield, a Brooklyn-based Anishinaabe visual artist, will curate “Life on Neebahgeezis; A Luminous Engagement,” which aims to highlight “the surreal qualities that come when the sun goes down, combined with the everyday.”

“Both Clara and Maria’s exhibitions are all Canadian artists,” Holmes said. “They were specifically invited to curate projects that were reflective of contemporary art across the country.”

The final exhibition, “Monument to the Century of Revolutions” at Nathan Phillips Square, will showcase 21 projects and be curated by Nato Thompson, artistic director at Creative Time in New York. The exhibit will take over the square with 21 shipping containers, forming a small village.

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The exhibition, which falls 100 years after the Great October Socialist Revolution in Russia in 1917, will showcase 21 projects in the 21 shipping containers, from local artists, activist groups and others, including architect Yury Avvakumov and Russian collective Chto Delat.

2. Embassy

Artists: Cedric Bomford and Verena Kazimierz

The project is part of the exhibition “Calculating Upon the Unforeseen,” which will be located along Dundas St. W. from the Art Gallery of Ontario to Yonge-Dundas Square. Built from scaffolding and building wrap, the piece is “an imagined, temporary, foreign mission,” according to the news release. It suggests a space still in progress, half built and on its way to becoming larger and permanent.

3. The Many Large Houses of the Ghosts

Artist: Marianne Nicolson

Through animated hand-drawn pictographs projected against the exterior of Old City Hall, this project addresses the dispossession of Indigenous peoples. As part of the exhibition, “Life on Neebahgeezis; A Luminous Engagement,” the project will be located on Bay St. between Queen and King Sts.

4. Holding Still // Holding Together

Artist: Annie Macdonald

The video installation looks at the struggles between police officers and protestors, whose limp bodies are dragged, moved or carried. Multiple screens will showcase the video and dancers will imitate the movements. Located at Queen’s Park and the University of Toronto, the project is part of the “Taking to the Streets” exhibition.

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